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Castile and León
The presence of Jews in Castile and León is attested as far back as the tenth century. Over the centuries that followed, the rulers granted the Jews the same rights and duties as of the ...
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Biel / Bienne
It was the clock-making industry that attracted Alsatian Jews to the Jura beginning in 1835. Among the great names in this industry was Achille Picard. From 1858 onwards, devout Jews met in a ...
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Bern
The Jewish presence in Bern probably dates from the 6th century. Jews are mentioned in the legal texts. During the Middle Ages, as in many other cities in the region, the situation of the Jews ...
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Zurich
The Jewish presence in Zurich probably dates back to the 13th century. During the Middle Ages, as in many other cities in the region, the situation of the Jews varied between reception, ...
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Basel
The Jewish presence in Basel probably dates from 1213. During the Middle Ages, as in many other cities in the region, the situation of the Jews varied between acceptance, persecution and ...
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Endingen and Lengnau
Until the end of the eighteenth century, the two villages of Endingen and Lengnau were the only ones that authorized the permanent establishment of Jews. Beginning in 1622, they resided here ...
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German-Speaking Switzerland
German-speaking Switzerland covers two-thirds of the country and accounts for 70% of its population. With cities as varied as its economic centre Zurich, the capital Berne, the watchmaking city ...
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La Chaux-de-Fonds
Founded in 1833, the Jewish community of La Chaux-de-Fonds met in a flat on rue Jaquet-Droz. Then, in 1853, a private house was used as a synagogue. From 1872, a was used in the commune of Les ...
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Lausanne
The Jewish presence in Lausanne is attested continuously from 1848 onwards, when several families met in a rented room. In 1895, the community had 41 members. In 1909, there were 110 members. It ...
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Carouge
Before Jews were able to settle in Geneva, the neighboring city of Carouge (at the time part of the Kingdom of Sardinia) opened its doors to them around 1779. The sole remaining Jewish ...
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French-Speaking Switzerland
Switzerland’s French-speaking population is located in the west, in a region that covers almost a quarter of the country’s surface area. With its charming little towns along the lakes ...
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Geneva
The city of banking and watchmaking… but not only. Geneva is a much more complex city, home to a great university and eminent thinkers for centuries, and it even published one of the first two ...
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Speyer
The history of the Jews in Speyer dates back more than 1,000 years. In the Middle Ages, the city of Speyer (formerly Spira) was home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the Holy Roman ...
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Worms
As the cultural and municipal services proudly point out, Worms has long been a central city for many religious movements. Thus, within a small area in the heart of its old town, you will find ...
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Mainz
An ancient Roman city, Mainz is known for its university, museums and places of worship, its monuments including the Castle of the Electors, its popular festivals… But Mainz is above all ...
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Frankfurt am Main
Like the opera house in the business district, Frankfurt is above all a city of encounters and fruitful exchanges in all fields and between different populations since the Middle Ages, but also a ...
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Friedberg
The small city of Friedberg possesses the deepest mikveh in Germany: seventy-two steps carved into the basalt lead the visitor to a natural spring situated eighty-two feet below the surface. At ...
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The Rhineland
The oldest vestiges of a Jewish presence in Germany are found in the Rhineland. For a long time, the river constituted the western border of the Roman Empire. In the fortified cities of the ...
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Berlin
Once again the capital of a unified Germany, Berlin today has the largest Jewish community in the country (11 000 people). This is nonetheless far fewer than the some 170 000 Jews who lived here ...
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Ostend
Ostend is a seaside town that has been very popular with British holidaymakers for centuries, as James Joyce, for example, testified. But also for the Belgian working class. The Ostend painter ...
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Ghent
Ghent is a city known, like Liège, for its student life but also as an important cultural centre, its port, and its ancient textile activity. The Jewish presence in Ghent seems to date back to ...
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Antwerp
The last real shtetl in western Europe, Antwerp is known for its Orthodox Jews and its diamonds industry. Barely twenty years ago, approximately 80% of Antwerp’s Jewish population used to ...
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The Hague
The monumental Ashkenazic Synagogue in The Hague was sold to the municipality, which put it at the disposal of a congregation of Turkish Muslims. It has since become the Al Aqsa Mosque. The ...
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Belfast
The Jewish presence in Belfast appears to date back to the mid-19th century, with the arrival of German Jewish merchants. The first synagogue in Belfast was built in 1871 on Great Victoria ...
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Limerick
Limerick’s small Jewish community (170 people) disappeared in 1904 after the only pogrom in Irish history- a pogrom with zero victims. The small of Kilmurray at Newcastle, County Limerick, ...
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Cork
The Jewish presence in Cork appears to date back to the 18th century. However, the community was formed mainly at the end of the 19th century, notably with the arrival of Lithuanian Jews. At the ...
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York
York’s Jewish community was the victim of the bloodiest outbreaks of anti-semitism in the twelfth century. In those days the Jews were well-established alongside the merchant classes, to ...
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Leeds
In recent years, Leeds, one of the main economic centres in England after London and a place with a rich cultural life, has attracted many families, also thanks to a pleasant lifestyle that is ...
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Oxford
Oxford’s oldest synagogue was transformed into a tavern, then incorporated into one of the university’s oldest colleges, Christchurch. There is, however, a new synagogue. It was built ...
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Bordeaux
For three centuries, the cellars of tumbledown houses in the old town were home to a hidden Jewish community, that of the conversos who came here from Spain after 1474. Used to hiding their faith ...